About Furnaces

In My Humble Opinion
1

So we’re looking into replacing an ancient forced air oil furnace. We don’t want to go back into oil again. It’s dirty and very expensive. He works at a welding company, and is able to get a discount on LP, so we’re factoring that in as well. We’ll be heating approximately 2700 square feet. We want something pretty efficient, but I’m sure that goes without saying.
There are plenty of options out there, but I’m turning to the dope to ask for opinions of best heating. We’re thinking about geothermal the hardest at the moment. We’ll have about $10,000 to pay for it, top end we’d like.

So Dopers, give it to me. Thanks in advance!

2

Check out the US EPA website for the btu rating’s of various fuels. So when you are looking at the cost of oil vs. the cost of propane you are comparing apples to apples. The btu content of a gallon of oil is quite different from a gallon of propane.

Oil is not inherently any dirtier than propane as a heating source. Hot air systems are filthy by their very nature. If you find you can’t afford geothermal - which is quite pricey - have a forced hot water baseboard system installed. The boiler can be fed with whichever fuel works best for you, but the heating is evenly circulated and much cleaner than the hot air blowers.